an epic fantasy writer's blog

This is the bit where I’m supposed to tell you I’ve been writing since I was knee high to a grasshopper; that I’ve got a wonderful wife, 2.1 children, 5 cats and a canary; and that I live in an idyllic spot. Well, the unvarnished truth is a bit more mundane. Yes, I’m a writer, and this is how it happened:

It all started when my fairy godmother paid me a visit in Dubai. No, seriously, she’s the real thing – pink taffeta, slippers, the works.
“It’s time you left never-never land, dear boy,” she said.
“Umm,” said I, “it pays the bills.”
“How prosaic, dahling,” said she. “Do you want to write or don’t you?”
“Well, if you put it like that.”
“I just did. So, what’s it to be? Horlicks or horchata?”
I perked up, smiled.
She snorted, raised a dangerous eyebrow. “Don’t. Don’t even go there. Well? Horlicks in front of a raging fire or horchata under a carob, your choice.”
My smile turned into a broad smirk.
She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Why are males so dense? Would you like to return to England or move to Spain?”
“Ah! Well, whenever I go home I freeze my…”
“Digits off. True,” said she. “So Spain it is.”
That’s when she waved her magick wand. That’s when I found myself on a Pumpkin Air flight to Alicante. That’s how I came to be in Spain, sitting under a carob tree, sipping chilled horchata. Good stuff, made from tiger nuts. No, not ‘tiger’s’…